Above: Sea Surface Temperature anomaly map from NOAA/NESDIS. Note the La Nina building in the Pacific.
By Dr. Roy Spencer
Sea Surface Temperatures (SSTs) measured by the AMSR-E instrument on NASA’s Aqua satellite continue the fall which began several months ago.
The following plot, updated through July 29, 2010 shows that the cooling in the Nino34 region in the tropical east Pacific continue to be well ahead of the cooling in the global average SST, something we did not see during the 2007-08 La Nina event (click on it for the large, undistorted version; note the global SST values have been multiplied by 10):
Bob Tisdale says:
August 3, 2010 at 4:00 pm
Basil says: “I remember the thread — where Bob went out on a limb, and predicted there wouldn’t be a La Nina this year.”
I did not make or imply a prediction in that post, Basil. I showed that the majority of El Nino Modoki events are not followed by La Nina events. That’s all.
I remember that post too. And I remember you were talking about odds and chances, things of that nature, and not saying anything definitive. Going by previous record the odds were that there wouldn’t be a La Nina. But the odds weren’t 100%.
It’s like saying when an athlete retires the odds are he means it. But then there’s Brett Favre. Maybe this should be called the Brett Favre La Nina.
Philip Finck says:
August 3, 2010 at 8:10 am
So the whole anomaly is really +/- .25 degrees! I could pee overboard on my fathers fishing boat and raise temperatures that much!
From South America to north of Australia. Man, you got a large bladder!
“”” sky says:
August 3, 2010 at 3:01 pm
George E. Smith says:
August 3, 2010 at 11:26 am
“Well I don’t know what sort of thermometers NOAA is using but they need to get some new ones.”
I’m always interested in ground truth, so please tell us if you see consistent discrepancies from your vantage point, or is this just this month? BTW, as an old Baja trekker, I’m curious whether you’re amongst the hoi polloi of San Felipe or the jet-setters of Cabo. “””
Hey Sky ,
I’ve been to Cabo precisely once in July 1973 just to try out the new road. Drove a VW squareback sedan, pulling a 13 ft Boston Whaler. Spent enough time at Cabo to do a U-turn and get the hell out of there; never to return.
I’ve also been to San Felipe probably zero times if I recall correctly, since I don’t think that is on the main Hiway-1 route.
No I have been making the Hotel Oasis in Loreto my home for a week every July since 1974 pretty much. I go just to fly fish for whatever pulls on the string; althoguh I used to go in March as well for the Yellowtail season (also on fly).
I just got back last Sunday from Loreto; and I measured the air and sea surface temperature pretty much all over the Loreto Bay Marine preserve; and got a fairly consistent temperature of 88 deg F in air and shade, and 82 deg F in the water; with a good fishing thermometer.
Of course the ground and air Temperatures in Loreto were considerably higher but MUCH COOLER than a normal July.
As a result; there were NO Sardinas; NO Humboldt Squid, almost no sailfish, and no striped Marlin; and very damn few Dorado.
But a good number of BIG Roosterfish which is highly unusual, since only the 2 pounders are supposed to be ther in July, and the biggies don’t come till October.
So it was totally screwed up. But we always have fun anyway; and catch whatever will grab. I caught a Moray eel on a live bait; and caught a Loreto Grand slam on fly (Triggerfish, Giant Needlefish, and Cornet fish) Well it’s the Loreto trash slam anyway.
The cornet fish is a very poor excuse for a fish.
And basically the Loreto Dorado fishery has been off kilter, since about May; and likely isn’t going to come back this year.
People were catching 30 pound yellowtail in July; for crying out loud; they are a March species in Loreto.
Amino Acids in Meteorites says: “I remember that post too. And I remember you were talking about odds and chances, things of that nature, and not saying anything definitive. Going by previous record the odds were that there wouldn’t be a La Nina. But the odds weren’t 100%.”
That’s a reasonable paraphrasing. I concluded the post with: Will a La Nina follow the 2009/10 El Nino? Considering that only 2 of 10 El Nino Modoki events since 1950 were followed by La Nina events, the odds are against it. But nature does provide surprises.
Bob Tisdale says:
August 3, 2010 at 3:45 pm
Rational Debate says: “The problem is that all too often with linked jpg graphs, as with this one, there is no attribution included.”
Sorry. I normally include a link to the specific post a graph was taken from. Here’s a link to the post:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2010/07/june-2010-sst-anomaly-update.html
The data source is listed at the bottom.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Hi Bob,
Thanks for the reply. You did include a link to your blog post in your comment here – and I followed it and did find the source referenced at the bottom of the post.
The thing is that often its nice to be able to refer someone to a single graph to make a specific point… but to do that, one has to either bookmark the graph separately with its contents as the bookmark title, or try to remember just where/what article one found a graph about xyz on… often you KNOW you found a graph that perfectly addresses some issue, but can’t recall where unless you’ve bookmarked it separately. If you bookmark the entire article, then you’d have to also enter tags or comments for each and every graph the article contained to have any hope of finding that one particular graph again – and that’s pretty labor intensive.
So, a single graph’s usefulness is lost, if there’s no source given on the graph itself. If you generated the graph, then of course I’d expect to see you take credit for it – but even then it would be most helpful if the graph carried not only your name (or url link to the article) but also the data source you used – on the graph itself.
Unless I’m misunderstanding you and you’re saying that you usually include a link to the article on the graph? Even then, having the source right there sure would help. Many people won’t read a full article that perhaps is addressing other issues also, in order to find graph source attribution at the very end of the article. It really helps to have the data source right there below the graph even just as text immediately below the graph before the article continues, but ideally entrained in the graph jpg, so one can bookmark the graph and others can judge it from the graph itself. Most graphing programs allow you to do that pretty easily.
re:
Hi Stephen,
Thanks for your reply. Yes, I would think that logically we would have to factor in all of the various known cycles in order to be able to get a good handle on why temperatures were changing one way or the other – and before we would be able to do a very good prediction of where things are likely heading also. Of course, sun cycles, major volcanic eruptions, and things of that nature would also have to be factored in as well.
I’ve seen a few papers (or abstracts or blog posts) that hit on parts of that equation – for example if I recall correctly one that factored in El Nino’s and La Nina’s and concluded that some fair percentage of the perceived ‘global warming’ could be accounted for that way alone. Others of course looking at sun cycles…
Frankly I’m rather amazed that there haven’t been in depth studies done trying to factor in all the known cycles, historically, along with CO2 and temperature levels! It just seems that if one is trying to figure out something so complex, then you’ve pretty much got to try to consider/look at all the known variables up against each other….
Sort of a trivial aside – it would be quite fun and enlightening to see someone put together a compendium of sorts of all the various research out that that has found “x percentage of global warming since… can be attributed to this or that factor OTHER than CO2.” I mean, we’ve got a few papers now saying 50 to 60% is from black soot, another large percent from the interaction of cosmic rays affecting cloud cover levels, and so on and so on. At this point I’d bet adding all the different “x percent from other than CO2” would wind up being far far more than 100% of the supposed total warming that has occurred since the little ice age – or at least since man was supposedly adding significant amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere!!
re: Bob Tisdale says: August 3, 2010 at 4:40 pm
Hi Bob,
Ideally pretty basic, but comprehensive in terms of including the basics on all of the known cycles. Next preferred would be a middle of the road sort.
Even better I suppose would be one very basic article of that nature, one pretty technical, and one in between. The Three Bears versions. :0)
I’d be appreciative of a link to any decent article on the subject, however, regardless of where it falls on the basic/technical spectrum, if you don’t happen to know of a really good basic one. I’m not looking to buy a book – hoping very much for free resources that way online, that I can easily access.
Rational Debate: Regarding labeling of graphs. I understand your wants on this matter, but I don’t foresee every producer of graphics taking the time to add a source note to every one. I produce hundreds of graphs per year for my blog and for the posts that Anthony cross posts here at WUWT. And for discussions here at WUWT and at other blogs, I’ll crank out another couple of hundred per year that portray datasets I’ve studied but haven’t written a post about. I don’t add my website address to the bottom of each simply because it’s yet another production step in a process that I would like to shorten.
Regards
Rational Debate & Stephen Wilde
.
Frankly I’m rather amazed that there haven’t been in depth studies done trying to factor in all the known cycles, historically, along with CO2 and temperature levels! It just seems that if one is trying to figure out something so complex, then you’ve pretty much got to try to consider/look at all the known variables up against each other….
.
There have been in depth studies and for a long time .
Even if the school stating that climate is dominated by the (non linear) interaction of
low frequency oceanic pseudo oscillations is much less “media intensive” than the classical computer model AGW school , there are dozens of papers .
Here is one for example which is pretty much right in the middle of what you look for :
https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/aatsonis/www/2007GL030288.pdf
In this paper Tsonis looks for a mechanism that caused an unexplained climate shift in the 70ies . He looks on all known oceanic cycles (PDO , ENSO , NAO , NPO) and explains low frequency (multi decadal) events as a result of interaction of the oceanic cycles .
This approach has of course for consequence that the system is chaotic and presents brutal regime shifts that can’t be deterministically predicted .
You have then plenty of references in the paper that will allow you to explore this subject farther if you want .
Alternatively you may have a look at the chaos theory too .
.
So as you see there have been many in depth studies looking at the problem from this perspective 🙂
>>I could pee overboard on my fathers fishing boat and raise
>>temperatures that much!”
>>If you wish to attempt to hide the decline in that manner,
>>feel free to do so. I’d strongly suggest facing the lee side of the craft.
Ha, ha.
I feel another video brewing, by the Minnesotans For Global Warming !
(hide the decline)
.
Bob Tisdale says:
August 3, 2010 at 3:01 pm (Edit)
you’re also going to have to consider that ENSO events also shift cloud cover around the tropical Pacific. Convection and clouds accompany the warm water as it sloshes east and west. The variations in Downward Shortwave Radiation due to the changes in cloud amount can peak as high as 45watts/sq. meter, dwarfing any perceived impact from the solar cycle.
However, alot of that variation occurs after the el nino is underway, raising humidity levels. A lot of the warm water gathering in the PWP for years in advance of big el nino’s comes from places where the the cloud variation is less than it is near the equator, where the ITCZ may or may not be at the time, taken as an average around the globe at those higher latitudes. The solar cycle does affect that decadal cloud variation, as Nir Shaviv showed us with his oceans as a calorimeter experiment.
It’s not a pure coincidence that the big el ninos of 1998, 2009 and the big el ninos of 1879 and 1890 were 11 years apart, the solar cycle length.
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/sst-ssn1870.jpg
Dr. Spencer,
The map shows a markedly large volume of area in the southern hemisphere cooling.
Through my own studies, climate DOES NOT CROSS the equator.
Joe Lalonde: You wrote, “Through my own studies, climate DOES NOT CROSS the equator.”
But the Pacific ITCZ is where the trade winds from the Northern and Southern Hemispheres converge and it wanders north and south of the equator over the course of a year with the average position about 5N to 10N. Also, doesn’t the Southern Equatorial Current actually straddle the equator?
http://s5.tinypic.com/of0d1t.jpg
The map is from this post:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/02/equatorial-currents-before-during-and.html
tallbloke: You wrote, “It’s not a pure coincidence that the big el ninos of 1998, 2009 and the big el ninos of 1879 and 1890 were 11 years apart, the solar cycle length.”
The two largest El Nino events in the latter part of the 20th century occurred in 1982/83 and 1997/98, separated by 15 years. And SST anomalies in the late 1800s have to be taken with a grain of salt. There’s little to no equatorial SST data back then.
Tom Vonk,
Thanks for pointing up the Tsonis work that I am aware of.
Opinions may differ but I wouldn’t class it or the references as ‘in depth’ or ‘for a long time’. They are on the right track but barely scratching the surface in terms of working out a comprehensive global net effect at any given time.
There are lots of other relevant factors as well of course but in terms of scale nothing else internal to the climate system comes anywhere close.
tallbloke wrote, “A lot of the warm water gathering in the PWP for years in advance of big el nino’s comes from places where the the cloud variation is less than it is near the equator…”
The tropical Pacific OHC that fueled the 1998/98 El Nino of the Century was created during the 1995/96 La Nina:
http://i36.tinypic.com/eqwdvl.png
Graph is from this post:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/09/enso-dominates-nodc-ocean-heat-content.html
Look up “Global Circulation Models” for information on all the various oscillations and heat transfers.
“Pamela Gray says:
August 4, 2010 at 1:33 pm
Look up “Global Circulation Models” for information on all the various oscillations and heat transfers.”
Hi , Pammy.
I just did that.
Where’s the bit about the net global effect of all the ocean cycles combined ?
Stephen.
The various ocean circulation regimes do not create nor destroy heat; they only move it around. Thus the changes in ENSO, PDO, etc neither warm nor cool the Earth. The heat they release or absorb is just moved around. It may go to a different section of the ocean surface, it may mix with deeper water or it may exchange heat with the atmosphere.
They don’t prove or disprove Global Warming.
“GregL says:
August 4, 2010 at 3:07 pm
The various ocean circulation regimes do not create nor destroy heat; they only move it around. Thus the changes in ENSO, PDO, etc neither warm nor cool the Earth. The heat they release or absorb is just moved around. It may go to a different section of the ocean surface, it may mix with deeper water or it may exchange heat with the atmosphere.
They don’t prove or disprove Global Warming.”
Quite so.
But they can explain most of the observed tropospheric warming and cooling and the latitudinal changes in air circulation positions.
Then all one needs to account for all the climate changes ever observed is solar variability contributing it’s own independent effect on latitudinal air circulation positions.
The combination of the two effects sometimes offsetting and sometimes supplementing one another.
That is all one needs.
Perhaps someone in disagreement could kindly supply an example of a climate change phenomenon NOT attributable to a combination those two main factors ?
WilliMc: Chiefio (E.M.Smith) has a little gem hidden away on comments to one of his excellent posts, which may go some way to answering your question about temp vs heat content. Comment is at http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/degree-days-view/#comment-5829
Global circulation models now include tandem atmospheric global circulation models and this indeed changes the amount of heat let in and let out through the atmosphere. Please go to the following example and start reading up on how the ENSO models have been created. Some are pure GCM’s and AGCM. Some also include GHG stuff. You just have to spend time reading their works. It will take a bit of your time to understand all of it. I certainly don’t yet.
http://iri.columbia.edu/climate/ENSO/currentinfo/models/Japan_Meteor_Agency.html
More info on OGCM’s (oceanic) and AGCM’s (atmospheric) that will get you started. Just keep reading and going through references. I picked the Japan model because so far, it has been pretty darned good at hind- and forecasting SST.
http://ddb.kishou.go.jp/climate/ElNino/jmamri_cgcm_doc.html
George E. Smith says:
August 3, 2010 at 6:18 pm
Hi George,
Every indication available to me also shows temperatures in the Sea of Cortez to be much cooler than normal this past July. Which makes me wonder not so much about the thermometers NOAA uses, but about their sense of datum levels and/or the lack of distinction in their gridding scheme between the greatly different climates on opposite coasts of the narrow Baja peninsula, whose length I’ve been traversing since my student days.
On a personal note, the Oasis in Loreto is still one of my favorite get-away spots. But I tend to go there in January, rather than July, to enjoy the warm contrast with the winter climate of California. And I prefer eating fresh seafood to catching it. Whereas in the old days I wouldn’t hesitate to go camping off-road anywhere between San Felipe and San Luis Gonzaga, the gringo influx into coastal condos has spawned a crime wave. While making Loreto through Cabo much more acessible, Highway 1 has ruined the attraction for me. Instead of finding ideal spots for skinny-dipping with a girlfriend in the secluded coves of Bahia de Los Angeles, nowadays one finds a bunch of Winnebagos parked there, watching sports on satellite TV. I even stopped going to Rosarito Beach on weekends for the world’s best margaritas at Los Pelicanos because of the violent drug wars and kidnappings near the border. The serenity of one of the least-inhabited, friendliest regions of the world has been lost forever.
Thanks for the links, Pam.
I like the Japanese products too and I’ll have a look into those items.
However I still don’t see that anyone has a grip on the global net variations in the combined oceanic cycles as they occur.
Once they do get it right then some predictive skill should emerge and then they need to link the oceanic variations netted out globally to the average net latitudinal position of all the air circulation systems then link those to the level of solar surface turbulence at any given moment because that seems to affect the global air circulation from above.
Combining the oceanic efects from below with the solar effects from above should produce predictability in the multi decadal latitudinal shifts in the air circulation systems and that is probably the best one can do. When one gets down to periods of less than a couple of decades the background chaos of weather starts to obscure the underlying trend.
I’m not aware of any climate changes in any specific region that cannot be explained by a change in that region’s position relative to the air circulation moving across it.
Changing the global climate is very different to changing a regional climate but even changing the global climate just comes down to shifting the regional climate zones a bit because when all is said and done all of climate is just a matter of energy distribution, not necessarily a matter of absolute overall temperature or energy content of the system.